All Clear

You enjoy all of the inside jokes even though you don't get them. But you really, really want to get them. So much. *sniff*

Only looking at my home park: Most Exciting: The corkscrew on Flight of Fear at the very end is the only corkscrew I've ever liked, and I like it very much. Lamest: After the turnaround on Rebel Yell, we pretty much go ahead and start talking about what we're going to do next. If all those hills weren't so tall, it would have an ending that might rival the Phoenix.

I'll finish up my second year as an ACEr this coming summer and I won't be renewing. There are much less expensive ways to get into the only event that I really liked (Holiwood Nights). Also, the newsletters are layed out in a way that makes them almost unreadable and Rollercoaster magazine is useless to me since I can get all the coaster porn I need on the internet for free. I'll spend the $65 I save on lunch at Busch Gardens or something.

That DP picture is really great. FWIW, the additional trash cans were the only really noticable difference that I saw at PKD this year. I didn't take any pictures, but we did spend a little time counting the paces between trash cans on International Street. (The greatest distance between 2 cans that we found was about 10 paces, the shortest was 1 pace. Most were about 6 or 7 paces apart.) Unfortunately, though, they weren't the nice open cans you see at DP. They were big black rubbermaids with difficult to push flaps that make you touch them in order to throw something away. Consequently, many of the many trash cans have trash piled up on top of and around them. People are pigs. Less noticably, little numbers started popping up on each car of each train. I wondered if that might be a Cedar Fair thing. I accidentally wondered aloud to my friend Nicole, who promptly made fun of me for being a nerd.

At Six Flags, they call this a "maintenance budget."

Wah loop smooth rough wah neutered wah taer it down rough heavy trains wah rough lighter trains record holder destroy wah hurts my belly fix it wah wah intamin.

How about no more freekin launching at PKD? How about just a big fast momma with a lift like Millennium Force? One more time. NO MORE launching coasters at PKD. At least not until Carowinds has a couple or three.

I'm kind of glad it's going. I've never liked anything about it (location, sensation, noise, capacity). As cool as it would be to have a proper rocket coaster a la Stormrunner, I don't think another launcher is in order. Put me down for a B&M hyper or Intamin mega if you want me to be a bit realistic. But the hopeless dreamer and fanboy in me squishes his eyes and hopes for a Gravity Group terrain woodie back into some of the undeveloped acreage (Beast sans brakes meets Voyage).

Umm, Chipotle > Baja Fresh > Moe's. Sorry, just giving you the facts.

PKD - 20 min. BGE - 40 min.

Theoretically. OK, all jokes aside. What is up with (most) ACErs not wanting to talk to anybody new? I joined ACE because I met a couple of really nice guys at a park a couple of years ago and they said it was fun and they seemed cool so I went ahead and joined. I've never seen either of them again. I've been to several events and it's really rare that I meet anyone and actually talk to them. I've wondered if it's me. I recently saw someone at PKD that I had had a brief conversation with earlier this year at a multi-club event. I went over to say hi and this guy said, "Oh, yeah, I remember you..." but all the while it was like he was hightailing it away. Couldn't stop and chat, oh, hell no. I kinda followed along for a bit trying to establish that we were two human beings who shared a common interest and lived on the same planet, but I seriously could not keep up with him. And even though he was talking, he wasn't looking at me. SO MANY TIMES the ACErs won't look at you when you're attempting conversation. This has typically been the case when I try to meet some "stragglers," by which I mean people hanging in ones and twos. On the other end of the spectrum are the great large herds that attend these events. These make more sense to me. They seem to be people who've been doing this for a while and they've all known each other for years and their clique is pretty established. You can't meet any of them because they're all too busy catching up with each other and reviewing all the inside jokes etc. I like meeting people. But I've never had a more difficult time chatting someone up than at an ACE event. Granted, there have been exceptions. At a couple of events, I have met a small handful of people who were cool to hang around with. But so often I leave wondering why I planned my trip to this particular park on this particular date just so I could end up hanging around like it was any other day at any other park with the exception of the ubiquitous gravy-laden buffet. Shoo-whee. Didn't mean to get all emo, but there it is. Maybe I just need to save up my moolah and take a TPR trip.

Rebel Yell. It will most likely be my last of the year.

Skyliner at Lakemont Park really surprised me in 2005. For such a small coaster, it felt really fast and a couple of nice floaty parts. 2006 rolled around and I made it back, only to find a sluggish, bumpy piece of crap sitting where one of my previous favorites had been.

^^I second that almost entirely. I would add that if you see Hypersonic testing before they open the gates, then it's likely that Volcano will not be opening until noon. It's usually one or the other opening with the park. As far as woodies go, Backward Rebel Yell nearly always opens at noon, Forward opens at opening. If Grizzly is open at opening, Hurler will be down and vice versa. All of the woodies seem to run better later in the day, anyway, especially Grizzly. It always seems sluggish to me in the morning (but it's nice if you can catch a zen ride). Man, we really do have a gorgeous fall this year, huh?

PKD Shockwave. ow.

Is anyone using a mac to fill this out? I'm assuming TextEdit is the right thing to use...

Top Gun at Carowinds. I'd been on several B&M inverted coasters at that point and had really enjoyed them all, but Top Gun still managed to blow me away. The pacing and ultra-smoothness seriously pushed it to the top of the heap.

The night shot of Apollo's Chariot is very cool.

I thought the skeltons in the Togo were pretty funny too, although my caption would have said something about stacking times at six flags ...

I'm glad to hear the Grizzly getting it's well-deserved props. That tunnel always feels like something has gone terribly wrong and just when you think you should be dead you come popping out the other side. Once in a while they have the lights on in there and then it's just weird. Voyage's triple down was the first coaster moment to scare the carp out of me in a loooooooong time. OT (not so best tunnel): Here's the story of the very first time my friend Nicole rode the Loch Ness Monster: As we latched on to the second lift, she began to share with me her ideas of how the section between the first loop and where we were now might be reprofiled to make the ride more exciting. That pretty much sums up my feelings about LNM's longest, slowest helix (for)ever. Strobe, fog, whatever. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Voyage, 45 minutes ago.

The Beast, about an hour ago.

I haven't been in ages either. It kind of snuck up on me this year and was over so quickly. I can't go this weekend, as I'll be out of town. Your pictures and the stuff I've heard from friends of mine who went make it seem like it's gotten better in the last several years or so. Isn't it next year that it'll be at the new location?

Nicole was really scared on Scooby but not really. That's my rad Kentucky Rumbler shirt that I won as a door prize at Rumblefest. My face is saying, "It's fun but I'll miss my kneecaps." Nicole, Robbie, Scooby, and some ghosts.

^^However, if current season passholders wish to purchase a 2007 pass that includes free parking, they must turn in their 2006 pass. Isn't that special?